[DCRM-L] Message from OCLC regarding Institution Records

Oksana Linda olinda at umich.edu
Fri Mar 27 08:33:12 MDT 2015


>
> I know and can appreciate that change is a constant in life but I do not
> like being lied to or being ignored.
> I think that many people on this list will appreciate that sentiment.


I very much share Allison's sentiment. I received the notification from a
fellow librarian, not directly from OCLC, and initially thought that only
the Clements Library wasn't notified. We have been using IRs from the
beginning (after RLIN went away) and this change caught me completely off
guard. I would like to know what other rare materials libraries are
planning to do. As far as I know Clements is the only University of
Michigan library that will be affected.

Oksana.



--------------------
Oksana K. Linda
Rare Books Cataloger
William L. Clements Library
University of Michigan
909 South University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1190
www.clements.umich.edu

Temporary address:
1580 E. Ellsworth Road
Ann Arbor, MI  48108-2417

On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Allison Rich <allison_rich at brown.edu>
wrote:

>  Hi Dick:
>
> We were not notified either until I read about this on this list.
> It seems that we all have the same experience here.
> Why make such a claim when it is patently untrue?
>
> While we still have the power to upgrade a master record, with the quality
> of some records
> for handpress era in OCLC it's often impossible to really match without a
> 510 citation, a field which is not transferred to an LBD record.
> So how can you upgrade that record when you really don't know what you
> have in front of you?
> For special collections cataloguers that is a real issue.
>
> I think what we are going to do is just to edit the record in Connexion,
> which will contain all the 5XX notes
> and local fields but will not save in the master record, export those
> records from Connexion into our
> local catalogue and then if that record needs to be edited again, there
> will have to be a copy and paste job done
> from the record as it lives in the local catalogue to the newly re-edited
> master.
>
> If the LBDs are as useless as Dick makes them sound and they are only
> available to view locally, then why even
> subscribe to a Worldcat Metadata API or Worldcat Metadata Record Manager.
> It may just cause more work for something that
> no one else really sees. And scholars will just have to consult the record
> in the institution's local catalogue.
>
> It just seems to be **counter-intuitive** and, as Dick says, it is going
> backwards.
> I know and can appreciate that change is a constant in life but I do not
> like being lied to or being ignored.
> I think that many people on this list will appreciate that sentiment.
>
> ~Allison
>
>  The LBD records are a poor substitute for IR records as they are not
> retrievable or viewable except locally. This seems to me to offer a false
> alternative that actually is going backwards. The IRs have enriched
> retrievals as they did in RLIN both due to additional entries and keywords
> and are particularly useful when comparing records for details that don't
> appear in the master record.  It is sad indeed that these neatly clustered
> records are being sacked with flimsy reasoning, when the myriad duplicate
> OCLC records found in almost any search will remain to clutter the results.
> Did OCLC actually do any study of how much access is being lost?  Retrieval
> will be lost and catalogers who go the extra mile will be discouraged, while
> OCLC searches will continue to produce results that are less than desirable.
>
> Our official notification was only this month with no opportunity for input.
> What a cooperative!
>
> Dick Miller
> Director for Resource Management
> Lane Medical Library
> Stanford University
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> ********************************
> "Outside of a dog,
> a book is probably man's best friend,
> and inside of a dog,
> it's too dark to read.
> - Groucho Marx"
>
> Allison Rich
> Rare Materials Cataloguer
> ESTC and NACO Coordinator
>
> John Carter Brown Library
> Providence, Rhode IslandAllison_Rich at brown.edu
>
> ********************************
>
>
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